Monday ”What Went Well” Report: Bum knee, but not for long!

It had to happen eventually. After a lifetime of running (sometimes at a wildly inappropriate weight for the kind of stress that knees take on a regular basis with all that pounding), I finished my ten-miler last Sunday afternoon and felt…something. No pops, tears, or trauma. Just…something that wasn’t right.

So I called the nurse hotline at my insurance company the next day. Turned out the nurse who took my call is a trail runner, so she knows something about knees. Specifically: don’t mess with them. Get ’em looked at, or risk a chronic, lifetime injury.

Needless to say, she convinced me to see a doctor the next day.

By Tuesday afternoon, I was in a decently-supportive knee brace with good lateral (side to side) support, and I was sitting (literally) on a probable diagnosis of a meniscus tear – a little bitty one, because my knee’s range of motion was fine and I didn’t have any traumatic pain involved when the doctor poked around the joint for a bit. Prescription: no running for now. A physical therapist at the end of the month. And I can do just about everything else for exercise. Excellent.

(An aside: In a former life, I would easily have used this injury as an excuse to do a whole lotta nothin’ for workouts for the next several weeks. But no siree, not here at Every48. Life is different now.)

So, What Went Well this week? I rediscovered the pool – and the pull buoy that I can hold between my legs to work my upper body only. I can kick (from the hips, please, not the knees) and I can definitely swim freestyle, so the pool is my new best friend.

And I can take spin class too – biking is just fine. I’m taking it a little more slowly just to be sure, but so far, so good. And I’m committed to doing everything I can do to plan out the week, get my work done (there’s a lot to do, so I need the concentration and the discipline), and take exceptionally good care of myself so that my knee can start to heal and I can get myself to my physical therapy appointment in fighting shape.

And here’s what really went well this week:

I no longer believe that a setback equals a failure. It just means we have a little more work to do to reach the goal. And the challenge that it requires – or, I should say, the discipline – might actually do a little something extra for us, like build character and toughness and grit.

Okay, I can’t run right now. I’ll deal with it. I’m actually a little relieved, because my knees have never been my favorite joint, and now I’m going to get to see a real live medical professional who has far more of a clue than I do about how to keep my knees healthy, so that I can keep running for the rest of my life. Yay. I’d say that’s pretty good news.

Recent #Every48 workouts: A SPIN CLASS last Friday – loved it and it gave me a ton of energy for the rest of the day. A SWIM on Saturday – some freestyle with pull buoy, some kicking with kickboard. About 50 minutes total. Felt like a badass getting out of that pool.